by Celia Scott
Finally he let her go, and breathlessly she sat back at the table, forcing herself to give Colonel Everett a calm smile. Together she and Damon cut the cake. His hand over hers was like a vice.
She forced herself to swallow a few crumbs. It was very good, but it stuck in her throat like sand. Damon and his uncle began talking about some improvements Colonel Everett wanted to make to his Cornish house, and Philippa had a moment to reflect, bitterly, that the first, and probably only, kiss she had had from her husband had been one of hate, not of love. Damn Martha! she thought. The promise she had extracted from her to behave at the wedding should have extended to the wedding reception.
Finally it was time for them to leave for the airport. They left the Colonel standing on the steps of the hotel, looking forlorn and rather frail, in spite of his military bearing.
The bride and groom didn't speak until they were installed in the first class cabin of the aircraft that was taking them to Athens, then Damon turned to her.
'I owe you an apology,' he said. 'I'd no idea my uncle would behave like that. I know he's wanted me to get married, but I didn't realise he would be quite so enthusiastic.'
Philippa regarded her new husband coldly. 'You don't have to apologise for Colonel Everett,' she said, 'I think he's a darling. But I am furious that I have to lie to him, and hurt him eventually. I've never felt so shabby in my life.'
'When the time comes I'll tell him of our separation, and take all the blame, don't worry,' he answered cynically.
'Honestly, Damon!' Philippa's voice rose with exasperation, then she noticed a curious glance from the stewardess, and lowered it. 'Honestly, Damon, I'm not concerned about that. It's just so… so tacky! I hate lies.'
'You knew there would be a certain amount of subterfuge involved in this venture when you accepted,' he said icily, 'I've apologised for the unforeseen reaction of my uncle. Now I don't want to hear any more about it.'
'Well, there's one other apology I'd appreciate,' Philippa said mutinously. 'It was quite unnecessary to kiss me the… the way you did.'
'Just keeping up appearances for the sake of Uncle Richard. Sorry you found it offensive.'
'I did.'
'Don't worry, I won't repeat it.' He glared at her.
'Thank you.' She picked up a magazine, and spent the rest of the journey pretending to read.
It was dark when they arrived in Athens. Like any city airport, it was hectic, and since the Greeks are an exuberant race, the terminal was chaos—excited Greek voices screaming loudly, groups of people embracing, weeping, laughing. Philippa stood beside the luggage carousel, numb and bewildered. Then she saw Damon coming towards her with a little man in tow, who was dressed in a navy blue uniform.
'Philippa, this is Spiro, our chauffeur,' said Damon, turning to the beaming little man—who reminded Philippa of a Kalamati olive, his face was so creased with smiles. Damon said something in rapid Greek. Spiro removed his cap with a sweep, and took a rather battered red carnation from his pocket, which he handed ceremoniously to Philippa. Then he stood back and gazed up at her admiringly.
'Oh, thank you… Spiro,' she fumbled in the Greek phrase book she had bought the previous week, and tried the phrase 'thank you very much'. This caused Spiro's face to almost split in two with joy, he turned to his employer, and gesticulating wildly, poured forth a torrent of Greek. Damon answered him rather shortly, and indicating the luggage to be stowed in the car, left Spiro to it, while he guided Philippa to the exit.
She sniffed the wilting carnation. 'What a sweet thing to do,' she said. 'What was he saying, Damon?'
'He said you looked like a goddess,' Damon answered crossly.
'How nice of him!'
'I pointed out that you don't have a temper to match.'
'Maybe he thought I looked like a bad-tempered goddess. They weren't always nice, were they?'
'You're right. Goddesses could be quite hard on mere mortals. I think I'll settle for a human woman… even if she does object to my kisses.' He installed himself beside her in the car and gave her one of his devastating smiles. Her heart turned over in her breast, and she instantly became all caution.
'I don't object on principle,' she said, trying to control the quiver in her voice, 'but I do think we should stick to the contract as closely as possible, without too much unnecessary play-acting.'
'Ah yes, the contract,' he spat the word out, like an oath. 'By all means, we must be legal.' He hunched his wide shoulders and turned from her to stare moodily out of the window.
Spiro finished stowing the luggage in the trunk and drove them out of the airport, and into Athens, towards the suburb of Hymettus, where Damon had an apartment.
As they climbed the hill to the apartment building, the Acropolis, floodlit against a velvet sky, blazed a welcome. Philippa forgot Damon's pique, forgot that this was the most miserable wedding night in history, for now she was caught in the magic of this most magical of cities. Now she really felt she was in Greece. The graceful lines of the Parthenon, theatrically lit against the dark night, succeeded in driving her doubts into the background. She turned to Damon impulsively.
'Oh, look, look… oh, Damon, it's so beautiful!'
Her enthusiasm was infectious. His face cleared. 'After I've collected Athena tomorrow, I'll take you there.'
'Oh, yes! Yes, please!'
'Unfortunately one isn't allowed to walk in the Parthenon now. It's being worn away by all the thousands who walk on it—that, and all the chemicals.'
'Chemicals?'
'Acid rain, and God knows what else, pours over that ancient temple, eroding it slowly, over the years.'
'But that's criminal!' Philippa was indignant. 'Can't anything be done?'
'So far, apart from forbidding pedestrians to keep the pavements from being even more worn away than they are, no one does a thing. Man's greed will finally obliterate one of the most beautiful ruins in the world at this rate. I sit on a committee to try and force the industries to do something about the filth that spews out of their chimneys, but so far we haven't been very effective, I'm afraid.'
'Well, you just keep after them, Damon,' Philippa's amber eyes were alive with concern. 'It's monstrous to think of a beautiful monument like the Parthenon just crumbling away!'
He laughed softly, 'Maybe I'll set you on to them. You look fierce enough to cow them into submission!'
The car drew to a halt at that moment, before a four-storey apartment building of fairly new design. The street was quiet and tree-lined. A gay striped awning shaded the entrance, and next door an elegant taverna sported several red and white umbrellas over small pavement tables, and this looked suitably foreign to Philippa's British eyes.
Damon's apartment occupied the entire top floor of the building, art-deco in design, and decorated in apple green and white, with touches of gold. All the windows had a view of the floodlit Parthenon, which seemed to float in the sky, a sentinel over Athens.
Philippa was introduced to Spiro's wife, Eda, a smiling counterpart to her husband. The couple were the resident staff, apart from a regular daily woman. Eda was overcome to meet her new mistress, and gabbled away in Greek, while showing Philippa over the apartment. And Philippa determined to learn at least a smattering of the language during her stay. The apartment was not overly large. Apart from the servants' quarters, there were two bedrooms, a dining room, and a spacious living room, furnished with green silk sofas and Oriental rugs on highly polished wood floors. Damon had a modest study that seemed to consist of books from floor to ceiling.
After her tour Philippa returned to the living room, where Damon sat, sipping a milky coloured drink. He rose when she came in, and said:
'You must have a glass of ouzo before you go to bed, Pippa.'
'I don't want a drink, thank you. Not after all that champagne.'
'That was hours ago. Besides, Spiro will be very disappointed if you refuse. He put it on ice for us when I phoned him yesterday to say we'd be coming. You can't real
ly say you've arrived in Greece till you've tasted ouzo.' He put some ice in a tall glass and poured some clear liquid over it. As soon as it touched the ice, it became cloudy and gave off a strong scent of aniseed. He topped it up with ice water from a silver jug, and handed it to her. 'There! Your first taste of Greece. Sit here and look at the Acropolis while you drink it—that's appropriate, I think. And sip, don't gulp, it's inclined to be a rough drink.'
'I'm not in the habit of gulping my drinks,' said Philippa. He could be so infuriatingly bossy sometimes, she thought, as she sank into the farthest corner of one of the plump sofas, as far from him as possible.
Damon turned out all the lights, except for one silk-shaded table lamp, and sprawling his massive length in an armchair, lay back with his drink in his hand, staring at the illuminated view in the distance.
Philippa sipped her ouzo. Its coarse aniseed flavour was refreshing. She sat very still, giving a false air of calm. Here she was, with a man who was legally her husband, but who was virtually a stranger. She was very conscious that she was many miles from home, and another worry was niggling at the corners of her mind. On her tour of the apartment she had only seen two bedrooms, Athena's and the master bedroom. She didn't like to ask Damon about it, since any reference to their contract seemed to enrage him, but she was anxious. And his proximity was overpowering. He had removed the jacket of the navy suit he had worn for the wedding, and put on a short wine silk dressing-gown, and comfy-looking slippers of soft suede. Philippa couldn't take her eyes from those slippers, there was something so intimate about them. They looked so domestic, so… married. And Damon was stretched out so lazily, she was more aware than ever of his powerful muscles under the silk robe, of his flat belly and long legs.
She buried her nose in her glass and took a hasty sip of ouzo. It went down the wrong way, and she choked noisily.
'I told you not to gulp,' he said. 'Here!' He poured her a glass of water, then sat at the far end of the sofa. 'Relax, Pippa. When we've finished our drinks we'll turn in, it's been a long day.' There was an agonising silence, during which she was sure he must be able to hear her breathing. Then he continued, 'To put your mind at rest, I sleep in my dressing room. There's a bathroom between us, and you can have the key to the door if it makes you feel better.'
'No… no, thank you… I mean, I don't need a key,' she muttered weakly.
'You plan to push the furniture against the door?' He sounded bitter.
'Certainly not! I mean, I know I can trust you.'
Damon regarded her wearily. 'Some men would consider that an insult,' he murmured. When she remained silent he continued, with a wry smile, 'Eda and Spiro are most disapproving. I told them you snored!'
Philippa finished her drink. The shadowed room made her feel remote from him, in spite of its hushed intimacy. When she broke the silence her voice sounded strident to her ears.
'Well, I'll go to bed, then. I'm very tired.'
'Goodnight, Pippa.' His gaze never wavered. His eyes were unfathomable, piercing in their intensity.
She rose, and waited for him to give her the light goodnight kiss on the cheek she had come to expect, but he didn't stir.
After an awkward pause she said 'goodnight' once more, and left him sitting in the darkened room, alone.
Lying in the big bed she could see the Acropolis, and, like a dream, the Parthenon seemed to float in the sky. She wondered, briefly, how Martha was faring, on her first night alone, but Martha and London seemed a lifetime away. Philippa felt emptied of all feeling, as if her life had only started when they arrived in this magical city, which sighed, like a promise, in the night.
CHAPTER SIX
'Good morning, Kyria!' said Eda in a bright voice. Philippa woke and instantly the events of yesterday flooded back—the wedding, Damon's angry kiss, and her arrival, with her surly groom, to this mysterious city.
Eda flung back the shutters, and the blinding Greek sunlight flooded the apple green room. Sun danced on the walls like music, in a passion of riotous silver. Philippa caught her breath, the light intoxicated her, and the honey-coloured Parthenon, looking more substantial in the morning, beckoned enticingly.
The Greek maid, after a disapproving look at the uncrumpled side of the big bed, set down a silver tray laden with breakfast things. 'You want in bed, or by window, Kyria?' she asked.
'Oh, by the window, please,' said Philippa, adding a 'thank you' in wobbly Greek. This released a delighted torrent of liquid-sounding Greek from Eda, not a word of which Philippa recognised. The woman insisted on helping Philippa into her peach robe, and left, still chattering away nineteen to the dozen.
The tray, which was set for two, contained pots of hot coffee and tea, two silver bowls of honey, one creamy and one amber liquid, a heavy cut-crystal dish of yogurt, a bowl of fruit, and, buried in a snowy damask napkin, a loaf of homemade bread, still warm from the oven. There was also iced orange juice in a silver thermos jug.
She poured herself a glass of juice, and was just spreading a slice of fragrant bread with honey, when there was a tap on the door and Damon came into the room. His skin seemed darker than before, and Philippa felt that he had become more exotic-looking since their arrival, as if his Greek heritage became dominant when he breathed the Athenian air. And the thin white silk shirt and dark business suit he wore did nothing to dispel this impression.
'Good morning, Pippa.' His eyes were neon blue in this luminous light, he looked at her tousled blonde hair and filmy negligee with approval. 'You're looking very pretty this morning,' his eyes lingered on the low neck of her peignoir. 'I like your robe.' His frank admiration of her flimsily clad body brought the blood to her face. 'But it won't be as sexy if it's covered with honey,' he teased, when she involuntarily clasped it closer with sticky fingers.
He sat in the chair opposite hers and held out one of the fragile china cups, decorated with a delicate floral design. 'I'll have coffee, please. Black.' Philippa dutifully filled the cup with the strong aromatic brew. 'Thank you. Have you tried the yogurt yet?' Before she had a chance to reply he went on. 'You must. Greek yogurt tastes like cream. It bears no relation to the watery stuff you buy in English shops.'
'I don't like yogurt,' she protested.
'You'll like this.' He put a large spoonful into a bowl and handed it to her. 'Here, try it.' And when she hesitated, irritated once again by his imperiousness, he said sharply, 'Eat it. It's good for you.'
'That's the worst recommendation I know,' she said. 'Things that are "good for you" usually taste awful!' But she tried a spoonful, to avoid an argument, and he was right; it was delicious.
Meanwhile Damon kept babbling—there was no other word for it—never giving her a moment to answer him. What's the matter with him now? she wondered, for here was a mood she hadn't encountered before. His eyes kept darting away, then coming back to rest on her with an emotion she couldn't name, but which she found disturbing.
His long, sensitive fingers drummed a tattoo on the table, and his signet ring flashed golden in the sunshine. His restless eyes encountered the double bed.
'That won't do, Pippa,' he said. 'You have to consider my reputation!' She looked at him uncomprehendingly. 'My reputation with the servants!' She still stared. 'The bed, girl, the bed!' he sighed. 'At least try not to advertise the fact that ours is a business arrangement. Rumple both sides, so Eda won't catch on that you sleep all night in splendid isolation.'
He drained his cup and got up. Philippa noticed he hadn't eaten. A slice of bread lay torn to fragments on his plate, beside a half-peeled orange.
'I'm off to get Athena now,' he told her. 'The poor girl will be wild with impatience to come home.'
Athena! The sole reason she was in Greece, and she'd forgotten. Panic swept over Philippa. What if Athena didn't like her? What if she didn't like Athena!
'How… how long will you be?' she faltered, praying she would have time to regain her composure.
'About an hour.' He stopped for a moment on h
is way out. 'And, Pippa?'
'Yes.'
'Don't look so worried. Athena's a nice child—far nicer than your spoilt little sister!' His door slammed punctuated this parting shot.
In an hour's time Philippa was dressed, and waiting for them. She looked calm enough, in a softly tailored pant-suit, her honey-coloured hair caught loosely at her neck with a jade barette. But her fingers twisted together nervously as she stood in the comfortable living room, and when she heard Damon's voice in the outer hall, her heartbeat quickened painfully.
Then he was in the room, his arm around the shoulders of a small, dark-eyed teenager, who looked suspiciously at Philippa during the introductions.
Athena was small and slender, and as unlike Damon as possible. Her face was very pale, and her short hair was blue-black and straight.
'How do you do?' she said stiffly. Her English was practically flawless.
'Rather nervous at the moment, Athena,' Philippa grinned, 'and I suspect you are too.'
There was no answering smile from the hostile Athena. Instead, she pointedly turned to Damon and started speaking in Greek, clutching at his sleeve possessively.
'Now, Kookla,' he gently loosened her fingers, 'we must talk in English when Pippa's with us. She doesn't understand Greek.'
'But I mean to learn,' Philippa assured him. 'Will you help me, Athena? I'd learn so much faster if you would.'
'I do not think I would be a very good teacher for you,' Athena answered coldly. 'Perhaps Uncle Damon can hire someone to teach you.'
'If you want all those new clothes for Crete, perhaps I should hire you!' Damon teased his niece, then explained to Philippa, 'Athena was asking me for an advance on her allowance. She's seen some clothes that she can't live without—eh, Kookla?' He smiled at his niece tenderly. It was clear that he loved her dearly. It was also clear, from the smouldering resentment she bore his new wife, that Athena adored her uncle. Philippa sighed. Winning Athena's affection was not going to be easy.